Pixel Droppings

Why am I bringing this up? Because the origin fallacy will kill your capacity for understanding literally any concept whatsoever. The guy who coined the term gender identity was anti-trans.

The modern scientific consensus on gender identity is so trans-affirming that anti-trans movements attack the concept constantly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Money

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What You Believe About Homosexuality Doesn’t Matter | Tyler Smither (via lacohan)

I wish I had heard this just ONCE growing up in the church. Just once.

Tell your Republican Senator(s) what you think!

If you can’t safely contact them in person, here are some other options for contacting your Senators:

Five Calls to your critters: https://5calls.org/

Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resist.bot/

And another: https://faxzero.com/fax_senate.php

Lost my mind a little and added (if my math is correct) 5,615 beads to Nim Teasdale's Odenwald pattern. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!

The goal was “soothingly weighted but not uncomfortable to wear, even as someone with chronic pain.” It could have been a little heavier, so maybe I’ll make a shawl with larger beads another time, but I’m very pleased with this one. I used size 6/0 seed beads, applied as I go with a .6mm crochet hook.

Yarn-wise, used 2 cakes of YarnArt Flowers. I knitted the fully purple sections from both, then knitted all the way through the yellow-oranges with a single ball. When I hit the beginning of red-oranges, I used yarn from both cakes, alternating between them. (Not the entirety of both, I played it by ear to make sure I made it through the full rainbow.)

I do have edited charts with bead placements. I will only share them with Nim's permission.

is because people have been arrested and put in fucking PRISON just for having gay sex in the privacy of their own homes. in the United States. this millennia.

if you think i'm joking, look up Lawrence v. Texas (2003). 14 out of the 50 US States STILL had laws on the books criminalizing sodomy--and yes, you could be imprisoned for multiple years and sometimes even life for repeat offenses.

in the years directly leading up to the landmark case, enforcement even in those 14 states varied, but it was absolutely weaponized against queer people, especially when stacked on top of other offenses to make up a longer sentence.

"Sodomy" does not, in a legal context, mean "anal sex."

It means "any sexual act the court has decided is deviant."

BDSM? Sodomy.

Crossdressing for sexual pleasure? Sodomy.

Jacking off to nude photos or video your consenting adult lover sent you of themselves? Sodomy.

Het oral sex? SODOMY!!!

If you're starting to think "but how could anyone prove that happened without breaking down the door?"

Ha. Haha. Ahaha.

First, I'll give you one guess how they did prove it.

Two, these were often scapegoat charges--basically they couldn't actually nail you on anything because you hadn't done anything actually illegal, only things they didn't like, and they relied on public disgust against your "degenerate character" (yeah there's a very big reason we keep saying not to use that word and it's not to be killjoys) to make sure you knew your place.

Which means that in practice:

Went to a socialist meeting? Sodomy.

Male kindergarten teacher? Sodomy.

Mixing races? Sodomy.

Not Christian (or the right kind of Christian)? Sodomy.

"Free the nipple" never meant "free to not wear a bra" or "free to breastfeed." Those were adjacent conversations that of course "free the nipple" supporters would boost, but that was NEVER the core of free the nipple.

The core of free the nipple was always that the breasts of people perceived as women ("female-presenting nipples" to use some Tumblr speak) are in no way different than the breasts of people perceived as men. And that since the chests of people perceived as men are not sexualized and are allowed to be exposed, so too should the breasts of people perceived as women. If men can be topless, so can women. If it's inappropriate for women to show their chests, neither should men. It isn't sexual assault for a woman to walk around barechested, because it isn't sexual assault for a man to do so either, and breasts are NOT sexual organs.

Claiming breasts are inherently sexual organs is factually and morally wrong, it is sexist and controlling, it is a tool of oppression, and it defines normal body parts (and bodily functions) as sex which leads to inherent sexualization of people with those parts. It leads to 12 year olds with large breasts being accused of seducing 40 year old men or trying to distract and corrupt their classmates.

"Free the nipple" doesn't mean "free the nipple in a god-fearing way." It means FREE THE NIPPLE, full stop, end of sentence. It means to free the nipple of the faulty social constructs that cast it as a sexualized, malicious force of seduction instead of a normal body part that should be free of expectations of shame or "modesty."

Breasts and nipples aren't shameful, sexual, immoral, porn-adjacent, kinks, a distraction, or things to be feared. They are a part of your body just like your elbows and ankles, and being afraid of them, thinking they will corrupt some innocent person or that being exposed to them is trauma akin to sexual assault, is the entire fucking problem.

Free the nipple, not just for breastfeeding, not just from bras, but from the fucked up social constructs that cast them as malicious instead of innocent. Stop trying to sanitize "free the nipple" for puritanical, conservative audiences who already hate you and the rest of us. You aren't helping anyone.